


witched

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [37]
Category: The Dark Pictures: Little Hope (Video Game)
Genre: Drama, Family, Fever, Fever Dreams, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27612289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Anthony has a healthy level of skepticism about an incident involving Megan.
Relationships: Anthony Clarke & Anne Clarke
Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789369
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	witched

Anthony hears first (well, second) because he’s home sick.  
  
Nothing controversial: Just a bout of flu that’s left him feverish and foggy-headed. He couldn’t sleep, so he tried to read; he couldn’t focus well enough to read, and so Anthony had stared at the ceiling until he had eventually dozed off.  
  
And then the front door slams shut.  
  
Anthony wakes with a snap, but it takes a few minutes to orient himself- he is too hot, too tired, too groggy to coordinate his body the way he must to get to the door. Going down the stairs is an additional struggle, and Anthony keeps both hands tightly gripped on the banister as he slowly steps down. He’s a little clearer by the time he gets to the kitchen: He finds Megan sitting at the kitchen table in her uniform and his mother with the phone pressed to her ear. Neither of them notice him.  
  
“God damn it, James,” Anne hisses after a moment, before slamming the handset into the cradle. She turns, and then yelps when she sees Anthony standing in the doorway. “Anthony! God, what are you doing home?”  
  
Anthony frowns.  
  
Anne slaps her forehead. “No- I completely forgot, I didn’t even remember you’d stayed home today. Do you still have a fever?”  
  
Anthony nods.  
  
Anne covers her eyes, shakes her head. “Dropping like flies, all of you.”  
  
Anthony turns to his sister. “Megan?”  
  
She stares at him, gives no response.  
  
Anne takes her hands from her eyes and sighs. “Megan had a seizure at school today. Fell to the ground and started screaming nonsense right in the middle of class.”  
  
Something in that sentence penetrated the fog. “You yelled stuff?” Anthony asks Megan, words a little slurred.  
  
She nods, expression inscrutable. “I couldn’t stop.”  
  
One clear thought floats up through the fog:  
  
_But that’s not a seizure._  
  
Anthony knows what a real seizure looks like. When he was younger he’d had a classmate, Diane, who’d had epilepsy and had seized in class a few times; eventually she hadn’t come back to school because one such seizure had caused her to bash her skull against the floor, leaving her permanently brain-damaged. “Probably in an institution now,” James had remarked before Anne had elbowed him and motioned pointedly in Anthony’s direction.  
  
Point being, Diane had never spoken during those fits.  
  
Never.  
  
Her eyes had rolled back in her head, she’d bitten her tongue, and then she’d shaken and thrashed on the floor until the seizure was good and ready to be done. “What’s it like?” Anthony had asked her one day, when he was feeling brave.  
  
Diane had shrugged awkwardly. “I black out, sort of. And then I wake up feeling like total crap.”  
  
He hadn’t seen her after that one big one, and Anthony’s secretly glad about it.  
  
But Megan, if she’s telling the truth, definitely did not have a seizure.  
  
_So what **did** happen?_  
  
Anne clucks her tongue, steps forward and holds Anthony by the shoulders- he had been swaying in place, almost dangerously close to tipping over. Once he’s steady, she presses the back of her hand to his forehead and sighs. “Megan, you wait here- _do not move_. I’m going to bring Anthony back to bed before he passes out on us.”  
  
Megan shrugs. She’s digging through her schoolbag now, looking for something.  
  
_Thanks for the concern, Megs._  
  
Anne keeps her hand braced on Anthony’s elbow as she brings him back up the stairs, and that’s good because somehow keeping his balance is _way_ harder going up than it was coming down. “Easy now,” Anne says as he stumbles on the top step and nearly face-plants into the floor.  
  
Anthony and Daniel’s room is right near the top of the stairs, so it’s not a long walk from there. Anthony’s mother helps him into bed, and the dizziness abates somewhat once he’s lying down again. “Thanks.”  
  
“When did you last take your temperature?”  
  
Anthony shrugs limply. “Not sure.”  
  
He shuts his eyes as Anne hustles off to the bathroom, very nearly dozing off before she returns with the thermometer in hand. She sits on the edge of his bed as they wait for the thermometer to finish up, rubbing her face with an expression of exhaustion that Anthony’s become well-accustomed to.  
  
Once the thermometer is out, he feels compelled to ask: “You okay, mom?”  
  
Anne doesn’t answer, squinting at the red line in the center of the glass. “One-hundred two. What was that, Anthony?”  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
Anne huffs a laugh, shaking her head. “My feverish son is asking if _I’m_ okay. That’s sweet of you, honey, but I’m fine.” She reaches out and strokes a hand through his hair, brushing his fevered forehead. The Clarke family is not a touchy-feely one by any stretch of the imagination, and it has been years since Anne has shown her second-youngest child any physical affection beyond a peck on the cheek or a quick embrace. Anthony lies still and accepts it.  
  
“Megan seems alright,” he says, trying to be reassuring.  
  
Anne sighs. “Thankfully.” She pauses for a moment, still lightly stroking Anthony’s hair. “This time, anyway. In general, though, she’s definitely not alright. Reverend Carson agrees- he says he’s going to work with her for a while, see if he can’t get to the bottom of whatever’s going on with her.”  
  
Anthony smiles weakly. “What, does he think she’s bewitched or something?”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Mom.”  
  
Anne doesn’t speak.  
  
“ _Mom_ , come on.”  
  
“I’m not _saying_ that it’s anything like that.”  
  
“Then why is Carson getting involved in it?”  
  
“ _Anthony_.” Anne’s voice holds a warning: She doesn’t like it when the kids call him ‘Carson’ instead of ‘Reverend’. “He’s a Reverend. He’s good at talking to people. Maybe he can get through to her.”  
  
_Or **you** could do that_.  
  
Anthony doesn’t say it out loud, because that will sting Anne in a way he can’t bear to inflict on her. He is the only child Anne does not regularly come into conflict with, and it’s obvious even to him that she’s gotten too quick to get combative with Tanya, Dennis, and Megan when she’s sensing attitude or resistance. Then they get defensive because they see their mother hopping onto their backs with little provocation.  
  
Anthony, on the other hand, is too compassionate to pile on to her already profound sense of stress.  
  
He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be listened to anyway.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
Anne sighs, takes her hand from his head and pats Anthony’s arm. “Get some sleep. I’ll come and check in on you soon.”  
  
Anthony nods, and shuts his eyes; he starts slightly when he feels Anne pull the comforter up to cover him a little better. Then her footsteps retreat to the hallway, the door creaking shut behind her.  
  
It does not take very long at all for Anthony to drift off.  
  
He dreams of Reverend Carson in a candlelit room with Megan dressed as a little Puritan girl, whispering about fits and witchcraft.  
  
Anthony sleeps, but he doesn’t sleep well.  
  
-End


End file.
